Resignation
by crearealidad
Summary: Everyone is ready when the second gunshot comes.


Spoilers: Spoilers up through and definitely including the S4 finale  
_**Warning: character death**_  
Notes: Yet another prompt from comment_fic on LJ that got too long. Prompt at the end of the story to preserve the... not surprise, but certainly the mood.

* * *

There isn't even the chance for a startled gasp.

The crack of a gunshot through the sunny afternoon is followed too quickly by the jerk of her shoulders, then her body crumpling to the ground, to allow anyone to comprehend what has happened. For a moment after she falls, the band continues to play the wedding march, too engrossed in their own sound to recognize the absolute stillness that settles over the assembled crowd. The notes cut off with a shrill shriek from a violin and then comes the collective gasp.

_It's happening again._

There are three years between this bullet and the first, but they feel the same to Kate. Out of place but entirely serious. Too real. Both rip into her with white hot heat and stun her. Both loaded years ago, had been metaphorically waiting for her since the day she joined the police academy. And, just like before, all she can see is his face. But this time he's twenty yards up ahead and her arms are just too heavy to reach him.

It isn't her entire life that flashes through her mind as she stiffens then falls. There isn't time. It's just that single moment when she'd been too angry, too frustrated, and too broken to go on. "I resign." The words echo, encompassing the end of her career, the end of the hunt, the end of her defenses.

In the end, she doesn't feel surprised that this had crept back into her life - ended her when she should have ended it. She doesn't doubt why she's dying, only why she hadn't been ready for the fight. She should have donned kevlar today - dress be damned.

Castle doesn't know it, but before he even makes it down the aisle to fall on his knees beside her, it is too late.

The white satin laid over thick green grass is soaking up her blood and sparkling in the sun without regard for the occasion as he arranges her on her back, only to find that between the thick heavy blood and layers of beaded white silk and organza, he can't find the entry wound. Or a wound of any kind. The feeling of her blood on his hands on a sunny day with the smell of grass and earth in the air just feels too familiar, too terrifying, and as though they all know - no one has moved in around him.

And then everyone has. He can feel the press of people in tuxedos and gowns around him, high heels poking into the soft earth, and then Lanie - hiking up her tight skirt and kneeling down into the blood and pumping at her best friend's chest so hard he hears the bones cracking and jerks with each crunching gurgle that comes from her body.

Everyone is ready when the second gunshot comes. Except for him. And maybe Lanie.

But she doesn't even seem to notice. She's still pumping and the ambulance is wailing but everyone - everyone - hears Esposito shouting and then Ryan then two others and then comes the bang, this one far closer than the first. Those who are not bent over Kate are watching and gasp at the drawn guns and half of them are running towards the four of them before the gun even fired.

When the EMT arrives and declares her dead, Lanie has to be pulled back bodily. The shooter is loaded in an ambulance but his death is inevitable - they will later learn that the bullet pierced his heart and his lungs, filling his body with blood in all the places it shouldn't have been.

Castle can't stop the shiver of relief he feels as he realizes that she will never know that _even_ _this_ won't answer the question. That man, whoever he is, will die and leave them with just as much nothing as they had before. It's not until he hears his daughter calling him, tearful and shaking, that the sadness washes through him. He knows he should stay upright, face this, help her, but he just slumps back to the ground at the edge of the white satin runner stained in what is now becoming a rusty red-brown mat of her blood.

When he doesn't move, to his surprise it is his mother who rises, gathering the crowds, directing them away with sweeping arms and brusque commands. She's taking swigs from a flask and tucking his daughter under her arm and then greeting the officers who arrive to cordon off the scene. He still can't get up but she's directing the scene without hesitation with a strength that he rarely attributes to the aging diva.

It isn't until Ryan and Esposito haul him up on his feet with their arms under his that he moves. They drop him under a shade tree, go about their work, leaving him to watch from there as photos are taken, flowers are bagged and evidence markers are littered across the grassy expanse just to remind him of mini yellow headstones, as if the sunny warmth and her blood on the lawn hadn't been enough.

Later with the sun beginning to set, it's Ryan who approaches him - trying to coax a statement from him, but he's out of words. Fortunately, he's kind enough to just drive him home. He walks him up to his loft and hands him off to his mother and daughter. Even they seem unable to talk and so they all just part ways once Ryan lets them close the door.

Castle spends the night on the couch - he's not ready to blot out the smell of her in their bedroom. He dreams not of the wedding, but of the cemetery, and he wakes expecting to find her for what will never be the last time.

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The prompt, for the curious was: Fandom and Characters of Author's Choice, death at a wedding


End file.
